Necessity to preserve dying traditions

S B KARALLIYADDA

Sinhala New Year is the religio-cultural festival of Sri Lankans. It is a traditional event commemorated by the Buddhists and Tamils of our society. Every activity performed commences on a date and time considered to be auspicious according to astrology.

The ancient society named it ‘Nekath Keliya'. Before we adopted the Roman calendar which is universally accepted today we were used to the planetary movements according to astrology. Hence we celebrated this event according to rise and fall of the sun and moon. We call it the solar month and the lunar month – the zodiac circle.

The solar movement is used to calculate auspicious times for our day-to-day events while lunar movements are used to calculate auspicious times for religious ceremonies. Solar month is the period during which the sun takes to travel one zodiac circle. The zodiac circle considered to take the sun to travel from Aries to Pisces is one year or three hundred and sixty five days.

The Sinhala Tamil new year is celebrated on the eve of this planetary change which usually occurs between the 13 and 15. But the Buddhist era begins from the day after the new full moon (Pura-palaviya) of Vesak and ends on the weaning full moon day (Ava-Palaviya) of April or Bak in Sinhala. The time taken for this zodiac circle is three hundred and sixty days or one year. Another era that was used by the ancient Aryans is the Saka era.

Our kings used the Saka era for their official correspondence. Hence our tudapath talpat sannas and other Royal grants and documents are dated in Saka era.

They start with Sri Sakavarsa.... etc. According to astrological predictions the auspicious times this year to see the new moon is March 29 lunar month and April 22 as Solar month. This Sinhala Hindu New Year is the 2012th as per Roman calendar now in use, and 2256th as per the Buddhist era and 1934th as per Saka era. This is the common ‘nekath keliya’ as the dawn of Sinhala Hindu New Year to Sri Lankans.

‘Wesak poson

saha esalada nikini mede

Binara evap

il unduvap duruthu mede

Navan medin dina

bak maha kona yede

Kiyan dolosmaha

siwpada samage ide’

Connections with nature

The human being lived with the nature from times immemorial upto the dawn of the new civilization. Natural phenomena that he could not understand was attributed to gods.

Hence he thought that the sun, water, air etc. which contributed to survival of the living was god created. Sun as the creator was worshipped as a god which custom of heliolatry became a form of worship.

The Sinhala Hindu New Year is a ritual of worship to sun. We can see the Hindus gathered in the Banks of Yamuna and other rivers in India on the dawn of this day.

The people of Benares gather in the banks of Yamuna and Gangese to worship the sun rise at 6.13 am. The agrarian societies of yore worshiped sun, water, air and other celestial elements.

New Year rituals

We start the new year day interacting with fire and water. Our mothers lit a kitchen fire in a improvised fireplace for the auspicious moment to light a fire and commence new year rituals. We interact with water by taking water from the well and a pot water so collected is preserved until the following year.

These practices vanished from the present day society as the fireplace in the kitchen is substituted by gas cooker and drinking water is available on tap.

The well or spout was a gathering place for rural women to exchange pleasantry and gossip. With a fast developing society with modern E-technology adopted for day-to-day domestic chores the ancient customs are rapidly fading from the village. Writing, reading, anointing oil on the head, going out for work, etc. are followed strictly according to auspicious times predicted by the astrologers.

The ancient ritual of ‘ganu-denu’ or money transaction prevails among the villagers but with a difference. Today the Ganu-Denu is among the rich and mudalalis. In the Kandyan kings regime this was a joint ritual with all office-bearers participating to prepare the royal cuisine.

They were the Batwadana Nilame, Vahala Illangama, Muhandiram, Kuttaha Lekam, Sattambi Ralas, Madappuli Ralas, Mulutange Mahattayas, Pihina Ralas, Mulutenge Naides.

Those in attendance were Maha Aramudale Wannaku Nilame, Maha Gabada Nilame, Veebedde Rala, Undiya Rala, etc. The Sinhala Hindu avurudu dawns after the Maha harvesting season when the farmer had collected harvests.

This is generally the vasanthaya of the nation. Mother nature too bless this season bearing various kinds of fruits, flowers and fresh greenery of the environment.

Various types of beautiful migratory birds appear in the village. Trees blossom with flowers and fruits. It is koha who brings the message of the coming new year.

The youth take to the abandoned paddy fields after harvest for various traditional outdoor games which are fast disappearing from our village. The lesson that all these ritual teaches us is togetherness, generous collective harmonious living with mutual help and service to others to co-exist.

The agrarian society taught us the system of barter or exchange of skills which we called ‘Attama or Kaiya’ to work in our agriculture pursuits. But today these mutual gestures and bindings in village life is replaced by the Tatas, Bajaj, Kubota of India and John Deer of Germany.

One attends to his own work without the neighbours help. The society has changed with the villager. The village is about 80% of our population and the villages and the villager are fast changing with modern technology and e-communication strategies.

How we could adopt modern lifestyles without allowing our rich cultural traditions and systems to die a natural death should be studied and corrected by the various intellects in allied disciplines with the blessings of powers concerned. The various lullabies used in traditional indoor and outdoor games too are disappearing giving way to rock and roll and other fast hits.